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info on AOE3

Information About the New Age of Empires
After almost six years since the last chapter in the series, Microsoft and Ensemble will revisit their blockbuster real-time strategy franchise, Age of Empires, later this year. Needless to say, a lot has changed since Age of Empires II, not just in terms of technology, but also in gameplay. There are no doubts that Age of Empires III looks fantastic, thanks to its new, cutting-edge graphics engine, but the big question is: Has the gameplay evolved as well? Thankfully, we've gotten our hands on a preview of the game, and we've been testing it out to see how Age of Empires III is shaping up. What we can report thus far is that Age of Empires III blends the familiar gameplay that the franchise is known for with a ton of new and interesting concepts that ratchet up the strategy to whole new levels.

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It's the colonial age in Age of Empires III, so go forth and conquer.

As you probably already know, Age of Empires III shifts the series' focus to the colonial era, when European powers carved out their stakes in the New World. As such, you can play as the Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Prussians, Russians, and even the Ottomans, in the race to conquer the Americas by establishing colonies, monopolizing trade, and crushing the opposition by warfare. (Native American tribes, such as the Cherokee and the Aztecs, can be enlisted as allies during a game, and you can raise Native American armies, but they aren't really a playable faction like the European ones.) The game features five "ages" of history, and they are, in order: discovery, colonial, fortress, industrial, and imperial. This covers a good 200-300 years of world history, and at the beginning of the discovery age, you'll still see remnants of the medieval ages that have yet to die, such as crossbows and pikemen. On the other end of the spectrum, "iron horses" (trains) begin to make their appearance by the imperial age.

We've been playing through the skirmish mode quite a bit, mainly due to the fact that the other modes aren't fully included in the version we played with. Like the first two games in the series, Age of Empires III will also feature a single-player campaign, as well as multiplayer modes. However, the skirmish mode (in terms of both single-player and multiplayer) is the most popular mode for Age of Empires fans.

The major new feature in Age of Empires III hits you when you start the game, because it dominates the main menu screen. It's the home city, and you'll create a home city of your own when you create your profile. In a way, the home city represents you, and it will grow and evolve the more you play Age of Empires III, because you can gain experience points to "level up" your city and customize it in different ways. It's certainly a beautiful sight, as you'll see a richly detailed European city, bustling with activity. How the home city works is a bit complex, but it plays a huge role in Age of Empires III, and it actually required us to go through the in-game tutorial to figure out how to use it. But once we did, we found it invaluable.

Basically, the home city is the capital of your European empire, and from there you essentially "launch" colonization missions to the New World. However, the home city is much more than that. When you begin a game, you'll find yourself in the familiar position of starting with a handful of settlers and a town center. From there, you have to start gathering resources (wood, food, and gold), begin to explore the map, and construct the many new buildings that you'll need to expand your colony. As you do these things, you'll gain experience points, which accumulate in a circular meter at the bottom of the screen. The more "heroic" the act that you perform, such as having your hero unit defeat a treasure guardian and claim the treasure, the more experience you're awarded. (Oh, yeah, more on the hero a bit later.) When you get enough experience to gain a level, you can click on the meter and it switches you back to the home city. From there, you can select a reward that the home city sends to you for doing such a great job in the New World. These rewards can range from supplies to more settlers, technology, or military units. Then just click on the circular meter again, and you'll switch back to your colony; a little bit later, your reward will arrive on screen, straight from the home city.

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The home city plays a major role in the game, as it can send you a steady stream of reinforcements.

Yes, it seems a bit complicated at first, but in no time we figured out the home city feature and were using it in different ways. Early on, it's invaluable to use the home city to send extra resources or settlers that can get your economy going, quickly. But by the middle and late stages of a game, we stockpiled our home city points for when we needed them. So, if we got into a struggle with a rival European power's colony, we simply ordered up a slew of musketeers and hussars (cavalry) to reinforce our forces in a hurry. You can even requisition outposts (which serve like the towers in Age of Empires II), as well as a fort that can be built anywhere you want.

The home city aside, much of the underlying real-time strategy in Age of Empires III is familiar, but different at the same time. Settlers still gather resources, but they no longer need to shuffle them back and forth to a drop-off point. As long as the settlers are actually working, the resources will accumulate in your stockpile. You still start out with a scout, though in this case it's a hero unit, and you can send him around the map to uncover the fog of war. (Alas, there still is no "autoexplore" function in Age of Empires III, though you can program waypoints by holding down the shift key while clicking on the minimap.)

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You have to wonder who thought standing in the open and getting shot at was such a bright idea.

The hero is not only tougher and more capable than regular units, but he is the only one who can recover the treasure that is randomly scattered around the map. This treasure can come in the form of extra resources, experience points, or even an item that you can equip a hero with to make him even more powerful. Keep in mind that each treasure node is guarded by a wild animal (ranging from wolves and bears to wildcats) or bandits, so it's useful to attach some musketeers or other military units to assist the hero in defeating them. Moreover, your hero cannot die. If he is taken down in the wilderness, he'll simply heal back up eventually. And if he is captured, you can ransom him back or try to free him by force.

Meanwhile, the old trade route system from previous Age of Empires games has been overhauled considerably in Age of Empires III. Now you can build trading posts at various points on the map. These posts, which must be defended if you want to keep them, help generate both trade and, more importantly, experience points. And if you build a trading post near a Native American tribe, you can enlist them to your side, which means that you can produce Native American units, as well as research various upgrades for them.

One of your main goals will be to advance ages as quickly as possible, as you can only get access to advanced military units and other technologies in later ages. As with the earlier Age games, you must stockpile enough resources in order to advance. But a big new difference is that when you advance to a new age, you get to select what kind of politician you wish to lead you. This can affect the types of bonuses you get. For example, in the fortress age you may choose between the governor, the admiral, or the Mohawk (assuming you've made friends with a nearby Native American tribe). Choose the governor, and you get extra settlers and musketeers; the Mohawk gives you native warriors, and the admiral gives you another ship and extra wood.

And now we get to the good part: combat. Another of your main goals is to build up a strong enough defensive force to keep interlopers away, and then to be able to switch to the offensive when you need to. This means building a well balanced force, usually of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and (if you have a coastal map) ships. You can construct barracks, stables, and foundries to churn out your units, and there are various upgrades available for purchase, assuming you've reached the appropriate historical age and can afford them. Defensively, you can build forts, outposts, and walls, and upgrade those as well.

Units automatically march in formation, as they did in earlier Age games, though we didn't get to see the new battle formation system (it may not be in this version of the game). We managed to roll over the artificial intelligence (though we must admit that we haven't risked the "hardest" difficulty setting yet), and our success translated into our home city leveling up in experience. And, though it didn't seem to be working in this build, you can use these experience points to customize your city--not only in appearance, but in the types of reinforcements it sends you.

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Age of Empires III looks great. Now we have to wait for it to ship.

If you've seen the early screenshots and movies, then you know that Age of Emprise III looks spectacular. And yes, the game looks as good as the screens, especially if you have a high-end video card capable of high dynamic range lighting, which creates light that looks more natural, and gives everything a soft glow. Of course, only the latest video cards are capable of supporting HDR lighting, so we also tried out Age of Empires III on an older, Radeon 9800XT. The game still looks great, though the soft lighting effects were missing. Even more impressive than the graphics, though, are the physics, which are used mainly for eye candy purposes, so far that we've seen. For example, order your artillery to fire on enemy towns, and you'll see buildings get ripped apart in unique ways. Just watching the arms of a windmill get blown off one by one is a treat, and blowing up stuff rarely looked as good as it does in this game.

We've only had a chance to scratch the surface of Age of Empires III, as this is a huge game to explore. There was little doubt beforehand that this was going to be one of the biggest PC games of the year, and after spending time with it, those doubts have all but evaporated. The production values are top notch, the gameplay is there, and the graphics are excellent. After six years on hold, the Age of Empires franchise looks like it's going to come back with a vengeance. Age of Empires III is scheduled to ship this fall.

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IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE GAME AI READ THIS:

**NOTE THIS IS FROM GAMESPOT:
There's little doubt that Age of Empires III is going to be one of the major PC releases this winter, seeing how the third sequel in Microsoft's landmark real-time strategy series will arrive nearly six years after its predecessor did. That's a long time to wait between chapters, but it appears that developer Ensemble Studios is making up for the long gap by throwing everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink, into Age III. Whereas the first games were set in ancient and medieval times, Age III is set in the New World, during the 16th and 17th centuries. And it looks fabulous, with the early screenshots displaying some truly beautiful moments in the game. We caught up with Dave Pottinger, the lead programmer for Age of Empires III and Ensemble's director of technology, to learn more about the technology in the game.

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Combat in Age of Empires III is all about standing tall in the face of certain death.

GameSpot: What, if any, cinematic elements are being added to Age of Empires III? Is the plan to make Age III the sort of game that evokes real emotion from players during single- or multiplayer games? How will this be accomplished? With brief in-engine cutscenes, swooping camera angles, highly articulated character models?

Dave Pottinger: We've rebuilt and extended the cinematic systems that we had in Age of Mythology. We liked how big and epic the Age of Mythology campaign turned out. The in-game cinematics were a huge part of that. We've gone even bigger on those things this time around. We've got all the high-tech bells and whistles you'd expect, and a few things you wouldn't. One of the great things about our setting is that it lends itself very well to sweeping vistas and awesome landscape shots as you explore the New World. Our cinematics and campaign take full advantage of the sense of awe created by those things.

GS: Tell us about how the game's new technology is being used to augment gameplay. For instance, can we expect to see real-time weather effects, like rain that actually affects your soldiers' or cities' performances? Burning buildings that spread flames to nearby structures? Water physics that actually affect the handling of ships at sea?

DP: The biggest example where the new technology affects gameplay is in the physics. The first time you see a heavy cannon blast a musketeer over a town center only to have the musketeer's limp body come to rest on the apex of one of the gables is when you've discovered something new and cool. We're still figuring out the right mix of gameplay versus eye candy for stuff like that, but we are experimenting with some neat ideas. The new technology has also created a huge impact on the gameplay, through indirect means, as well. The game looks so great just running that we felt it critical to add more animations and better unit behavior for things such as combat and movement. Those clearly affect gameplay, but they also might not exist if the rest of the game didn't look so hot.

GS: We understand that the graphics engine is not only being used to render huge, realistic environments, but also to render soldiers, buildings, and just about everything else in tremendous detail, even when viewed up close. Since Age III is a real-time strategy game, and players will probably spend a good deal of time playing from a zoomed-out view, why this attention to detail? What does it add to the game? Better differentiation between different units? Better differentiation between different ages?

DP: An attention to detail is something near and dear to our definition of the Age of Empires franchise. When we first demoed Age I to everyone, we blew them away with details like chariot riders being thrown from chariots when they died. The cool thing is that, now, we're doing that in real-time 3D as opposed to the 2D sprite system from the Age I era. The Age franchise is also about giving players options. If they want to play random map games against the computer player, they can get that. If they want a rich story experience with the campaign, they can get that. If they want to test their mettle online, they can get that, too. That philosophy is all over the game, so graphics get that treatment, too. If you want to zoom in, you can do that. If scenario designers want to either rotate buildings for variation or use higher polygon models, they can do that, too. So, I guess I'd say it just helps round out the game. We put a lot of stuff in every Age box; this is just one of those things.

GS: Tell us about the tech that's being used for the game's artificial intelligence in battle. Is the plan to realistically model the marching formations and tactics of soldiers of the day? Or morale in battle? Will soldiers be predisposed to act as they did in specific historical battles? How in-depth will the AI get?

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You can also order your men to take up different types of tactical formations, such as the defensive square.

DP: That's an interesting question. It's unlikely we'll get down to modeling morale; we like units that do what we tell them to do too much for that. But, we have spent a great deal of time on research and development for some very cool combat innovations. The combat system in Age III is all new. One of the big changes is that it's very group-based. People expect this time period to deliver musketeers standing in volley formation, cavalry charging into combat as a big group, and infantry forming their collective lines to defend the precious cannons as they shell the unlucky enemies. We set out to build a group combat system that gives players more-interesting tactical control than previous real-time strategy games. We wanted to fix the, "Hey, I'll screw up pathing by just micromanaging my units all around the combat"-type of thing. We did that pretty quickly, actually. The hard part has been taking that and making it feel like an Age game in terms of user control and flexibility. I think we've finally rounded that corner just recently. It's very, very cool to play right now.

GS: Could you tell us about the AI that's going into creating the behavior of your rival nations in the game? Will they have genuinely different play styles depending on what kind of resources or landmasses (water or no) are available? Can we expect to see computer-controlled nations also favor the kind of strategies they did historically?

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The random map generator will create an unlimited number of unique levels.

DP: Yes and yes on those last two questions. We've always been very proud of our noncheating AI in the Age series. But, like just about every other area of the game, we've upped the bar on that this time, too. We started with the AI from Age of Mythology and have spent a ton of time specifically focusing on adding "fun play styles" and identifiable personalities to play against. The goal is to make you feel like you're really playing against Napoleon, snotty attitude and all. His battle tactics will be different from Queen Elizabeth's as well, in an obvious way. It's been an interesting challenge learning how to balance such a high emphasis on personality with the demands of an RTS computer-player AI. For example, giving Napoleon a strong personality means that we need to give you some idea of how often he's likely to rush. But, if we overdo that, he'll be too predictable to be fun. So, we've got to strike just the right balance between those two things.

GS: Tell us about the random map generator and the tech behind it. How will this tool generate realistic-looking maps to play on that actually look like the American frontier? Beyond the added replay value of having more than just pregenerated maps, what else does this utility add to the game?

DP: We've always fundamentally believed that one of the biggest reasons that the Age franchise has done so well is the random map generator. That's a very tricky and difficult piece of code to write, but it's given us our vaunted "infinite replay" value. It's cool to play on a map you recognize but yet has variation from game to game. Fairness is huge in random maps, so we have a ton of code that deals with allowing the random map scripts to specify how to place things in an interesting but controllable way. We use a lot of AI-like devices in that code--everything from simple control variables and weighted placement ranges--to influence maps and full-on pathfinding (to make sure you can get to important spots on the map from your starting town). All of that gets fed into our engine via a piece of script that even end users can modify and write. That script is essentially a little program that generates the random map as it runs. The cool thing about that approach is that it means that you can truly do anything in a random map. In terms of utility that this adds to the game, the replay value is huge. But, in the "interesting development tidbit" camp, we find that the random maps keep us a lot more honest about our code. We can't ever take any shortcuts or use scripted things because we can't rely on a designer seeing every map that we make. As a result, we have a lot more work to do. But the end result is a more robust engine.

GS: We understand the team went back and rewrote its multiplayer code for Ensemble Studios Online, which was originally built for Age of Mythology, to better cater to serious fans (rather than casual fans). Can you give us an update on the multiplayer tech and how it's filling out? What features will ESO offer players when Age of Empires III launches?

DP: Yes, that's exactly what we did. We were happy with ESO for Age of Mythology. It was our first foray into inside-out matchmaking and integrated matchmaking servers. But we just made some mistakes in what we emphasized. We underestimated how much people will learn how to use a user interface when they go online, so we simplified Age of Mythology's online interface way too much in an effort to get casual gamers online. This time around, we're building a UI that makes us and our hardcore fans happy. (The casual folks will figure it out.) We're not talking specifically about individual features yet, but it's safe to say that we've expanded and built upon every area in the multiplayer code. It's cooler, faster, safer, and more robust. Along with that, we're dedicating a specific team, post-ship, to manage the community and do updates, which is something we've never done before. Hopefully, both of those things will give us a great multiplayer experience and community for Age III.

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The game looks great, and it's scheduled to ship sometime this winter.

GS: Finally, is there anything else you'd like to add about Age of Empires III's technology and graphics, or about the game in general?

DP: It rocks. We were very nervous, initially, about whether we were making the right choice in emphasizing graphics so much. Our team got freaking huge because of that, since it's not like we can just skimp on gameplay or AI. We just had to keep adding artists and programmers to get everything done. But it's very rewarding to see the results. It looks like just about every RTS game is following our lead, as well, which means we're onto something cool. And, we're going to be first.